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"Yoda" was originally written by "Weird Al" Yankovic during the initial run of the 1980 American epicspace operaThe Empire Strikes Back.[1] The film introduced the character of Yoda, the ancient Jedi Master who trains Luke in the ways of The Force following the demise of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Indeed, Yankovic later jokingly remarked that, "Prior to The Empire Strikes Back, the thought of writing a song about Yoda had never occurred to me."[2]

After the success of the movie, Yankovic toyed with the idea of writing a song based on the break-out character, but was unable to find a suitable song.[2] "I remember I was toying around with the idea of writing a song about him."[2] Yankovic remembers, "I was still in college at the time, and a friend of mine named Mike suggested that I do the song to the tune of 'Lola' -- which I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of myself, since I was such a huge Kinks fan."[2]

Yankovic wrote and recorded a version of the song, using only an accordion,[1] on a 4-track cassette Portastudio.[2] This version of "Yoda" was a hit on The Dr. Demento Show, and even managed to hit, and hold on to, number one on the Funny Five countdown for several weeks.[2] This early demo was later released on one of Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes.

After the large success of the demo version, Yankovic desired to put the song on one of his albums.[1] However, the immensely complex process of getting permission from both George Lucas and the publishers of the Kinks' "Lola" delayed the release of the song for about five years.[1] Eventually, after Lucas gave Yankovic permission, the song's publishers turned Yankovic down.[1] The song may have remained unreleased for some time had it not been for a chance encounter Yankovic had with the song's original songwriter, Ray Davies. When Yankovic asked why he had not given him permission, Davies remarked that he had never been asked.[1] Davies immediately gave Yankovic permission to record the song, and the song was later released on Yankovic's third album Dare to Be Stupid.[1] Ever since then, Yankovic has directly asked the songwriters for permission whenever possible.

The commercial release of the song does not feature accordion, and is truer, musically, to the original song.[1] Yankovic later remarked, "It's kind of a backlash from the first album, where we had accordion on everything. It just became a little overwhelming to me."[1]

After Dare to Be Stupid was released, Yankovic considered "Yoda" little more than a "cool album track" and less of a potential single due to the age of both the Star Wars movie and the original song.[3] In addition, a video for the project was out of the question, as the majority of the album's video budget went to the then-current "Like a Virgin" parody.[3] When asked why a video was not made, Yankovic also speculated that the legal and monetary requirements to make a decent video for "Yoda" would have made the project impractical.[3]